January 6, 2009
Changes to iTunes
Posted by Stacy Chandler at January 6, 2009 8:43 PMApple announced today that it is making two major changes to iTunes:
1) It will no longer encrypt the songs you purchase with digital rights management (DRM) software.
2) The 99-cent price tag will no longer be the norm. The majority of its songs, it says, will drop to 69 cents, but super new stuff and big hits will be $1.29. Middle-of-the-road songs, in terms of popularity, will stay at 99 cents.
What I wonder is how they'll determine which songs get which price? And, more specifically, how will "our" music -- Americana, I mean, and indie rock and bluegrass and all that non-top-40 stuff -- fare? Lucinda Williams is huge in our circles, for example, but you won't see her videos on MTV (ha ha, like MTV really plays videos anymore at all ...). So will we pay more for her now? Or less, because we're onto something much of the rest of the world doesn't know about? Beginning in April, I guess we'll find out.
I wonder what that means for album downloads?
6.99, 9.99 and 12.99?
Reminds me of the bargain bins at the run-down used CD store. Everything that was popular sold for sky-high prices and the umpteen million one hit wonder albums sold for $1.99. iTunes just wants to cash in on whats in. As soon as it's out, the price'll drop, which may actually make some of the lesser known artists - specificly one's in the genre boondocks like Americana-Roots-Folk more affordable, unfortunatly- this means less profit for the artists seeing as we only see 60% of the cut. So, the more in demand you are, the better the bargain bin they stick you in. Sometimes it's lousy down here in the underground!
Posted by: Mathew at January 6, 2009 9:55 PMThis is a direct shot at Amazon's MP3 download service, which in my humble opinion, has been much better than iTMS since it came out in early 2008. I've stopped buying songs/albums from iTunes altogether.
Now that both will be non-DRM, I'm not sure what I'll do. I guess I'll go with the cheaper price.
Posted by: larry at January 6, 2009 10:07 PMMost likey, the prices will be determined by the record companies dictating to iTunes how much money they want out of the sale of their music. The smaller record companies will be cheaper, and the huge Sony, Warner, etc... company's will be the $1.29 tracks. (Unless the songs are really old, and considered "bargain-bin."
Since I'm a full-bore Machead, the iTunes DRM has never bothered me since the music was always going to live on my iPod or on a Mac. I do purchase music from Amazon if iTunes doesn't carry it however.
Posted by: Matt at January 8, 2009 11:23 AMI think iTunes is recognizing reality, and trying to shape its pricing to reflect the bargain bin that ALL music is rapidly falling into. Let's face it, for the past forty years things have been jumpin for music, 1968-2008 was a huge run. But now the economy looks more like 1929 than 2009, those who can find work need to find a LOT of jobs to stay afloat, and plunking down big bucks for a bit of eardrum-tickle just isn't making sense. Stay tuned, you ain't seen bad yet, but it is coming.
Posted by: Jim Pipkin at January 8, 2009 1:37 PMLike Matt said, the record labels will most likely determine most of the pricing. Ya got your new and hot (single CD's that list at $19.99 to $16.99), ya got full line (that list at $15.99 to $12.99) and ya got your mid-line (that list at $11.99 to $9.99). iTunes' prices will probably loosely fall into that groove. As the economy wears on, or down, look for some special price promotions to generate traffic. Just like brick & mortar. Why? Because the folks who run the show grew up on the brick & mortar business model and old habits die hard. Cynical? Oh, no, not me!
Posted by: Paula at January 9, 2009 7:50 PMYesterday's cynic is today's mainstream thinker.
Posted by: Jim Pipkin at January 10, 2009 5:40 PM
